Pubdate: Sat, 11 Mar 2006
Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI)
Copyright: 2006 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.madison.com/wsj/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/506
Author: Ed Treleven

SECOND DRUG-DEATH COUNT FILED AGAINST WOMAN

A convicted heroin dealer, who police say had bragged that her drugs
were so good that they killed, was charged Friday with her second drug
overdose homicide.

Lavinia M. Mull, 26, of Madison, who pleaded guilty in January to
first-degree reckless homicide for the drug overdose death last year
of Sarah Stellner, was charged Friday with first-degree reckless
homicide for the May 5 heroin overdose death of Michael Ace, 31, of
Madison, at his West Wilson Street apartment.

Ace died just nine days after Stellner. After Stellner's death a drug
buyer working as a police informant said that Mull was still selling
heroin and "had been advertising it as being so good that it has
killed people," a criminal complaint in the Stellner case states.

Jonathan Lehnherr, 24, who was charged in December with first-degree
reckless homicide for Ace's death, told police last month that in
April and May he had bought heroin once or twice daily from Mull or
her boyfriend, most of the time at Mull's duplex on Larry Lane in the
town of Blooming Grove, according to the latest criminal complaint
against Mull.

Mull and Lehnherr were charged under Wisconsin's so-called Len Bias
law, named for the University of Maryland basketball star who died
from a cocaine overdose, which allows drug dealers to be charged with
reckless homicide if drugs that they sold caused the death of a user.
Dane County prosecutors have made extensive use of the Len Bias law to
charge 19 people in connection with 13 drug overdose deaths since 2002.

Only one other person, Patricia Mims, has been convicted in Dane
County of causing two overdose deaths - those of David Bechtel, 47, of
Janesville, and Gregory Elmer, 43, of Monona, on Sept. 12, 2003. She
is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

Stellner, 19, died on April 26 after she was injected with a dose of
heroin that a friend bought from Mull. Two friends were convicted of
first-degree reckless homicide. Morgan Fenick, 18, who injected
Stellner, was sentenced earlier this month to seven years of probation
with a year in jail. Ryan Daley, 24, who bought the heroin, got a
two-year prison sentence.

Samuel Katz, 27, was convicted of delivery of heroin and sentenced to
five years of probation with six months in jail. Mull is scheduled to
be sentenced in the Stellner case on April 13.

According to the latest complaint against Mull:

Lehnherr told Madison police Detective Mike Montie that he bought
heroin twice from Mull at her duplex on the day that Ace died. Using
cell phone records, Lehnherr identified the calls he made to Mull to
set up the purchases.

Even after Ace's death, Lehnherr said, he continued to buy heroin from
Mull or her boyfriend once a week until late July.

Lehnherr initially had told police after Ace died that he did not know
who sold him the heroin but that it was someone on Allied Drive, the
complaint states.

On Feb. 13, however, Lehnherr picked Mull from a photo lineup and said
he had gone to her home on Larry Lane to make the buys. Lehnherr said
he had first met Mull in April after giving Mull's mother a ride to
Mull's house, then began to regularly buy heroin from her. 
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